Aid to the Church in Need: Tackling Africa’s culture of death

Tackling Africa’s culture of death

Posted by Press Release on 19/12/2008, 10:26 am
Board Administrator

ACN News, Friday, 19th December 2008

Tackling Africa’s culture of death

By John Newton and Eva-Maria Kolmann

THE WEST is imposing an alien model of the family on Africa and is promoting a ‘culture of death’, according to a leading Catholic charity.
Returning from a fact-finding trip to Africa, Christine du Coudray Wiehe, who coordinates Aid to the Church in Need projects in French-speaking Africa, appealed for industrialised nations to do more there to promote the family and protect human life.
She expressed regret that many western agencies working in Africa promote a concept of the family that is foreign to the traditional African model consisting of husband, wife and children and instead promote promiscuity through artificial contraception and abortion.
Miss du Coudray said: “The Africans see these ideas as foreign. They understand at once that this is no culture of life but rather a culture of death.”
She dismissed claims that condoms are a solution to the spread of AIDS, describing how ACN supports HIV/AIDS prevention strategies – many aimed at young people – which encourage chastity outside marriage and fidelity within it.
Miss du Coudray said ACN was virtually the only provider of help for schemes promoting the ‘culture of life’ in Africa and appealed for support from other charities.
She was in Africa at last month’s congress of the Africa Family Life Federation (AFLF) in Nairobi, Kenya.
About 100 people from 17 African countries took part in the conference, including medical specialists and theologians, priests, religious sisters and lay specialists active in pastoral work.
A declaration from the AFLF congress condemned international treaties, such as the Maputo Protocol, whose “sole objective is to force abortion on demand on women in every country in Africa under the guise of rights and non-discrimination”.
Accusing the Maputo Protocol of implicit promotion of contraceptives and abortion services to children, the declaration said that “the document is devoted to the wholesale radical feminist transformation of African society and the destruction of family and traditional cultures and norms.”
Miss du Coudray said that the AFLF, which has been supported by ACN since it was set up eight years ago, was better placed than other groups to encourage specialists to work together to support the family.
She described how the AFLF’s work aimed at broad outreach to families and practical help for married couples, including instruction on natural family planning.
With the backing of ACN, the AFLF is producing a handbook on Christian family life, which will be used in numerous African countries.
Miss du Coudray said: “I believe there is nothing more important than to focus on the family. It is the basis for everything else – a healthy and stable society, priestly vocations and the future of mankind.”
She went on to say that Africa has a “special calling” to show the West that the future of mankind lies with the family.

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, contact please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org